SCA @ AAA 2011 Montreal

New Theoretical Directions in Anthropology (NTDA)

One of the key aims of the Society of Cultural Anthropology is to identify theoretical paths that stimulate new thinking and help formulate intellectual directions into which the discipline can grow.  For many years, SCA's highly successful yearly session, Culture@Large, has brought anthropologists into dialogue with thinkers from outside the discipline, inviting those thinkers to the AAA for a dialogue with anthropological interlocutors.

The Society now wishes to expand this effort in a related but different direction. For the next three years the SCA is reforming its program policy for the AAA meetings in order to invite one panel each year under the title: “SCA New Theoretical Directions in Anthropology:…” (NTDA). We wish to expand conversations on the new possibilities for research and analysis by engaging with the work of a particular theorist whose ideas animate the work of today's anthropologists or open up theoretical itineraries for the future.

Similar to Culture@Large, the aim to provide a space for theoretical discussion not necessarily tied to areal or ethnographic specificity. But NTDA differs by examining the work of theorists within and without the discipline, past or present. These figures might be emerging theorists or long established ones whose work may have been neglected or which might be mined in new ways to generate differing trajectories for anthropology.  The focus on theory does not signify an abandonment of ethnography or a conceptual cleavage between theoretical and ethnographic work, rather we wish simply to signify that these panels will focused primarily in exploring the theoretical work of a particular thinker. In no particular order potential panels might examine the theoretical questions of: Alain Badiou, Isabelle Stengers, Bernhard Steigler, Wendy Brown, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Veena Das, Etienne Balibar, Jacques Ranciere, Friedrich Kittler, Achille Mbembe, Slavoj Zizek, Ashis Nandy, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

To this end the SCA encourages submissions for the 2011 AAA meetings that fit the NTDA initiative. Panel organizers should submit session abstracts following the usual AAA deadline of April 1. As a reminder, the SCA does not consider invited sessions in advance of the general April 1 deadline. Submissions should be sent to Brian Larkin and Cori Hayden.

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